Pokémon Design Misconceptions

When I see a pokémon for the first time, I occasionally get mixed up about its design. For example;
When I played Sapphire for the first time, I always thought Nosepass had one leg, and the other thing was its mouth, and it was whistling. But when I got Emerald and saw its animation, I facepalmed so hard.

Similarly, when I first saw Woobat, I thought its nose was a single eye with a huge heart-shaped pupil, haha. Then it opened its eyes after it evolved into Swoobat and I then realized those tufts of hair next to it's "eye" weren't its arms after all.

I thought that Crawdaunt was steel type for the longest time, because on colosseum, my first pokemon game, it shines in the light, and the thing on the top of its head looks very metallic.

And I thought the same about Woobat lol.

Oh, and for years I couldn't figure out Zubat's type. The first move it used was leech life, but it bears no resemblance to bug. I thought it must be flying, but then again you have venomoth. It also uses poison sting so early on.
Never did it cross my mind to either look on bulbapedia, the pokedex or catching one to see.

Another one I just remembered is Cradily, until a few days ago, when I looked at it properly for the first time, I thought the yellow markings on its forehead were its eyes...turns out the yellow glowing circles in its "mouth" are its real eyes. Ahh I feel so stupid

Well, Cradily is supposed to have "fake eyes" anyhow. But yeah, I thought that for awhile, too. =P

This one isn't huge, but it still threw me off for awhile.
I always thought Jumpluff feet were its hands. I never really cared about it enough to look up different pictures of it, so until just a few months ago I had thought that they were hands.

Another one I just remembered is Cradily, until a few days ago, when I looked at it properly for the first time, I thought the yellow markings on its forehead were its eyes...turns out the yellow glowing circles in its mouth are its real eyes. Ahh I feel so stupid

You know the yellow marks just above the... mouth or whatever on dusknoir. They are meant to be fake eyes to ward of predators or something.

You got me nintendo! I didn't fall for cradily though ;)

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Haha, I never fell for Dusknoir's nipple-eyes xD
But back in the Ruby/Sapphire days, I also always thought Masquerain's wings were its eyes...now I realize how retarded I was. It's basically exactly the same as Surskit but with huge wings and a red face

Another weird one. Pelipper's back sprite in RSE is on the ground...I used to think Pelipper was either a Water or Water/Ground type, because I thought being on the ground changed it's typing! (I had no idea about the summary screen until about a year or so after playing Pokémon).

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When I first saw it, I thought Hitmonchan's skirt shorts were some sort of beard. I know that's a pretty hard misconception to make regardless of game (its sprites are always rather clear on that point), but at that point I only had the first TCG card to compare to.

In early artwork, Venusaur also appeared to have a rather flat, derpy face.

And yes, Metapod. It took me ages to realize which side was actually the front.

When I first saw it, I thought Hitmonchan's skirt shorts were some sort of beard. I know that's a pretty hard misconception to make regardless of game (its sprites are always rather clear on that point), but at that point I only had the first TCG card to compare to.

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You mean this?
I can see where you're coming from. If you cover up the mouth with your finger, it actually kinda looks like he has a moustache, beard, and a big black mouth, hahaha

I had once thought Shiftry's nose was some sort of beak. The backsprite didn't help that assumption. I was quite disappointed to find out that in actuality, it had a large head with a pointy nose.

One that still bothers me is Aron's R/S sprite. The dot on the bottom of its head still resembles a gaping mouth to me, and the spikes on its body make it look like it has one arm pointed toward the sky while balancing itself on the other one.